ne march of forty-five miles and the
_Roosevelt_ in another of equal length. My heart thrilled as, rounding
the point of the cape, I saw the little black ship lying there in its
icy berth with sturdy nose pointing straight to the Pole.

And I thought of that other time three years before when, dragging our
gaunt bodies round Cape Rawson on our way from the Greenland coast, I
thought the _Roosevelt's_ slender spars piercing the brilliant arctic
sunlight as fair a sight as ever I had seen. As we approached the ship I
saw Bartlett going over the rail. He came out along the ice-foot to meet
me, and something in his face told me he had bad news even before he
spoke.

"Have you heard about poor Marvin?" he asked.

"No," I answered.

Then he told me that Marvin had been drowned at the "Big Lead," coming
back to Cape Columbia. The news staggered me, killing all the joy I had
felt at the sight of the ship and her captain. It was indeed a bitter
flavor in the cup of our success. It was hard to realize at first that
the man who had worked at my side through so many weary months under
conditions of peril and privation, to whose efforts and example so much
of the success of the expedition had been due, would never stand beside
me again. The manner of his death even will never be precisely known. No
human eye was upon him when he broke through the treacherous young ice
that had but recently closed over a streak of open water. He was the
only white man in the supporting party of which he was in command and
with which he was returning to the land at the time he met his death. As
was customary, on breaking camp he had gone out ahead of the Eskimos,
leaving the natives to break camp, harness the dogs, and follow. When he
came to the "Big Lead," the recent ice of which was safe and secure at
the edges, it is probable that, hurrying on, he did not notice the
gradual thinning of the ice toward the center of the lead until it was
too late and he was in the water. The Eskimos were too far in the rear
to hear his calls for help, and in that ice-cold water the end must have
come very quickly. He who had never shrunk from loneliness in the
performance of his duty had at last met death alone.

Coming along over the trail in his footsteps, the Eskimos of his
party came to the spot where the broken ice gave them the first hint of
the accident. One of the Eskimos said that the back of Marvin's fur
jacket was still visible at the top of the wate